I have had the opportunity recently to act as a facilitatator at a couple of the Days of Dialogue events taking place in Los Angeles this year. Taking a contentious topic–the future of policing–that has been debated around the nation in a confrontational fashion, this program demonstrates another way the issue can be addressed. The program brings together police officers, community leaders, students, and other interested and affected residents of the city to sit around small tables exchanging ideas and experiences related to how policing is and should be conducted. The organizers of these dialogues have promoted them as a starting point for action and change. And it’s certainly legitimate to view the process of listening and trying to understand […]

My rabbi’s Rosh Hashanah sermon this year concerned the important topic of healing the widening rifts in the Jewish community, which have broken out especially over the nuclear weapons deal with Iran. The problem he was talking about is not so much that there is disagreement about the advisability of this deal. Considering how troublesome and untrustworthy an adversary Iran has been, one would expect strong disagreements among supporters of Israel about how we should deal with that adversary. Such disagreements wouldn’t be a particularly new thing among members of the Jewish community. As the rabbi pointed out, ferocious conflicts among factions of the Jewish community have existed from the time Joseph fought with his brothers, and on and on […]

Joint sessions have suddenly shown up as a hot topic again. The fall issue of the ABA Dispute Resolution magazine features an article by Eric Galton and Tracy Allen alarmingly called “Don’t Torch the Joint Session,” which decries the “disturbing trend” of eliminating the joint session from mediation. LA mediator Lynne Bassis has an article in the same issue entitled “Face-to-face Sessions Fade Away.” And New Zealand mediator Geoff Sharp on the Kluwer Mediation Blog has written a piece with the strange title “The Californication of Mediation,” which identifies this disturbing trend as emanating from my home base, the well-developed mediation market of Southern California. Eric Galton has even formed a facebook group called “Save the Mediation Joint Session and Promote Party […]

In the first episode of the second season of Orange is the New Black, the series presents a variation on the prisoner’s dilemma problem that is often discussed in mediation programs and texts. Piper and her former girlfriend Alex both have to testify against the drug kingpin they used to work for. Alex persuades Piper to lie and say she had no contact with the guy, otherwise he might take reprisals against them both. After giving her testimony, Piper finds out that Alex in fact told the truth at the trial, leaving Piper exposed to a possible perjury prosecution and an increase in her sentence. In the prisoner’s dilemma scenario, an opportunity to communicate as well as familiarity with the […]

I heard about a mediator who started a session by asking all the participants to spend some time talking about their personal histories and interests, presumably in an effort to get the parties to see each other as human beings and establish connections that might help them resolve the dispute. Lo and behold, these parties did resolve the dispute to each side’s great satisfaction, but at least one side later reported that they disliked this touchy-feely aspect of that mediation. So even though this technique was proven to work well, it still made one of the parties uncomfortable enough that they would probably prefer a more conventional and perhaps less effective approach. Mindful of stories like that, I try to […]

Joseph C. Markowitz

Joseph C. Markowitz has published this blog, focusing on mediation and other forms of conflict resolution, since 2009. Mr. Markowitz practices law under the name "Law Offices of Joseph C. Markowitz," sharing space with three other attorneys in downtown Los Angeles. He has been in practice since 1980, emphasizing employment law, intellectual property, and general business disputes. Mr. Markowitz was trained as a mediator in 1994, and has served on one state court and two federal court mediation panels, in addition to handling private mediations. He also served as president of the Southern California Mediation Association in 2014.

For more information about Mr. Markowitz’s law and dispute resolution practice, go to jcmarkowitz.com